Jmo's Unspoken Laws of Romance Writing

Sometimes there are subtle little laws that govern writing. These laws are usually unspoken and held in the strictest confidence because if you talk about them they come true, but being insane to begin with, I’m prepared to tempt fate and reveal all. So get ready for…

Jmo’s Ten Unspoken Laws

of being a Romance Author

1. If you plot your book down to the smallest detail, one stray thought in the shower will change the complexity of your story and force you into a major rewrite and add more gray into your hair than Miss Clairol can fix.
2. The last draft of your book will lull you into a false sense of security. Five days after submission, you’ll go insane trying to mentally will your submission back into your inbox so you can rewrite the whole thing.
3. A submission will automatically kill any creativity you may have. No lie. You have a wealth of stories demanding to be written but the minute you hit send, they dry up as you sit by the yahoo mail box waiting for word of your latest success or failure. This wait also leads to cuticle loss, and irrational thinking that Yahoo is out to get you and is at that very moment sending all your emails to a spam folder in someone else’s box.
4. My favorite, your characters are plotting behind your back. They have devised a way to totally change your book by being themselves, whereas you want them to be somebody else. Yes, authors are paranoid and not afraid to talk to themselves when no one else is looking.
5. Your editor is out to get you. Yes, it’s true. You can perfectly understand the insane ramblings you put to screen. Why can’t they understand y’all is indeed a word and you’uns is a perfectly normal way to speak? Okay that one only applies to writers from the South.
6. We are all searching for the Holy Grail, the Naughty Bit Thesaurus that tells us the five thousand different ways to say the same bit of naughtiness. It exists! We all know it does. But the editors are hiding in the Lost Ark of the Corset, where writers aren’t allowed to look because we can’t handle the truth.
7. I’m not sure if this true, but I believe it with every fiber of my being. Sherilynn Kenyon has the Simi locked up and she is really the one writing the Dark Hunter Books while Sheri takes all the bows. I dare her to tell me different!
8. Your children have no interest at all in your life as a writer… until you start writing the HEAT. Then they want to look over your shoulder, and say, “What ya writing?”
9. Your spouse will always read your books and their only comment will always be, “How come we never do that?”
10. Finally the one law that no writer can avoid. No matter who you are, how famous you are, or infamous, all your fans want to know is…So did you bag that hot guy on your cover? FYI—I didn’t but Morgan O. does every time. The trollop!

Well there they are. I’m sure at any moment the Romance police will be coming through the door and whisk me away to a well deserved beating.